A car bomb killed at least eight people including four civilians near a pro-Turkey rebel post in the northern Syrian city of Afrin on Sunday, a British-based war monitor said.

Two babies have died of illness in the past week at a camp for displaced people on the Syrian border with Jordan, the United Nations children's agency UNICEF said Thursday.

A Syrian refugee who spent several months in limbo in a budget terminal at a Malaysian airport has been granted permanent residency by Canada and is en route to Vancouver, his lawyer said Tuesday.

The global chemical weapons agency will investigate an alleged gas attack in Syria's Aleppo that reportedly wounded up to 100 people on Saturday, the agency's chief said on Monday.

Syria's regime has accused armed groups of carrying out a "toxic gas" attack that left dozens of people struggling to breathe and prompted government ally Russia to launch retaliatory air strikes on Sunday.

The Islamic State group has killed 24 US-backed fighters in two days in an attack launched from its embattled holdout in eastern Syria, a war monitor said Saturday.

Two activists critical of both the regime and jihadists were gunned down Friday in Syria's last major rebel bastion in the northwest of the country, their radio station and a monitor said.

Air strikes by the US-led coalition Saturday killed 43 people, mostly civilians, in a holdout of the Islamic State group in eastern Syria, a Britain-based monitor said.

France has issued international arrest warrants for three senior Syrian intelligence officials in connection with the deaths of two Franco-Syrian nationals, legal sources said Monday.

The Islamic State group killed 12 US-backed fighters in a surprise attack Sunday from the militants' holdout in eastern Syria on the Iraqi border, a Britain-based monitor said.

Syria is ready to cooperate with new UN envoy Geir Pedersen as long as he avoids the methods of his predecessor, its deputy foreign minister said in remarks published Sunday.

A UN convoy carrying much-needed humanitarian assistance arrived Saturday at a refugee camp in the Syrian desert near the Jordanian border, a war monitor reported.